Alleged Grand Theft Auto 6 hacker appears in court

The 17-year-old from Oxfordshire who is believed to have been behind the recent gargantuan Grand Theft Auto 6 leak was due to appear in court in London this weekend.

The unnamed teenager has been charged with two counts of computer misuse, as well as two counts of breaching bail conditions.

These latest charges likely refer to the teenager’s previous run-in with police over hacking charges – when they were suspected of breaching both Microsoft and Samsung earlier in the year.

In a statement issued by City of London Police on Saturday morning, Detective Inspector Michael O’Sullivan wrote:

“City of London Police arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking on Thursday September 22 in an investigation supported by the National Cyber ​​Crime Unit (NCCU) of the National Crime Agency (NCA) He has been charged in connection with this investigation and remains in custody.

“The teenager has been charged with two counts of breach of bail conditions and two counts of misuse of computers. He will appear in Highbury Corner Youth Court on Saturday September 24, 2022. ”

The individual in question is believed to be part of the hacking group named Lapsus$, which has been named in hacks of companies including Microsoft, Samsung, Uber and Nvidia. Several members of the group are currently under investigation by the FBI.

Rockstar only commented to confirm that it suffered a “network intrusion” that led to the leaked information being taken from its servers.

The GTA maker said it was “extremely disappointed” but said there would be no “long-term effect” on development. No live services, such as Grand Theft Auto Online, were interrupted.

In March 2022, BBC News reported that the teenage hacker – then just 16 – had been arrested for the first time. It is from this occasion that the bail conditions, now believed to have been breached, appear to flow.

At the time, the teenager’s father told BBC News he would try to stop his child from using computers.